


the sweat in midnight's hour

by anotherbuskitten



Category: Marvel 616, New Avengers (Comics)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27370228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherbuskitten/pseuds/anotherbuskitten
Summary: "How, exactly, did you think that having an affair would help our marriage?"
Relationships: Clint Barton/Bobbi Morse, Clint Barton/Jessica Drew
Kudos: 1





	the sweat in midnight's hour

**Author's Note:**

> so about five years ago i found a prompt generator somewhere and the summery's what it gave me so I've just gotten around to being inspired by it. info you should know: I haven't actually read the run of, I want to say new avengers? where clint and jess get together so what I've written is probably yards away from being accurate. still it's writ so it's going up
> 
> title is from Mary Coughlan's 'There Is A Bed'

He’s halfway into bed with her when it hits him that he’s being an idiot. He’s married. Unhappily married, sure, but that’s a recent development and even if it wasn’t, is he really that much of an asshole?

Yes. Yes, he is.

(is it better or worse if the sex is good?)

The thing is, it had helped. After he slept with Jessica he found it easier to deal with Bobbi being away. And not just for the obvious reason.

When Bobbi’s mission had been extended he didn’t pitch a fit like usual. It even let him take a step back and see just how much of a whiny bitch he had been being.

He still missed her, of course.

In fact, the very night the news came through he cancelled his dinner date with Jess to stay and skype with her.

Yeah, he was a real white knight. Oh wait ick no. White knight had bad connotations when it came to Bobbi. And whatever else Clint was he wasn’t anything like the Phantom Rider.

Right?

Cheating wasn’t as bad as rape. It wasn’t even a proper violation, not the way he was doing it; maybe if he and Bobbi lived together and Clint had invited Jessica to live in her place but no, it was just sex.

(really good sex)

But that got Clint thinking, because after the Phantom Rider incident they’d gone to couples counselling for one whole session and a lot of it was apparently about empathy and putting yourself in the other’s shoes.

So would he prefer to be raped or cheated on?

Unpleasantly, after a few moments he realises he’d prefer to be raped; he can handle being hurt but not people leaving him.

So. Yeah. This particular self-reflection is not doing great things for reassuring him.

But that might just mean that he’s particularly messed up, not that Bobbi would agree with him. She’d probably think he was diminishing it again. Which he wasn’t. Was he?

No. People were just different. Bobbi understood that.

And why was he thinking about this as though she was really here talking to him? The only other person in his apartment was Jess, still asleep in his bed.

(was the sex worth the guilt?) (really good sex) (not as good as with Bobbi) (god he loves her so much)

Bobbi had forgiven him the last time he cheated on her. It hadn’t really been cheating, he still didn’t think; not when the skrull girl had _been_ Bobbi in every way except birth.

Now that was a violation. Transforming into someone and taking their memories and thoughts and scars and their entire life. That he wouldn’t be able to stomach – and probably doing it much better, because pretty much anyone could.

He was such a mess. Their lives were such messes.

(no)

He had to fix this.

  
  



End file.
